How do you mess this up?

I love Pac-Man, I really do, but this is not a very high quality collection. Let's go game by game, shall we?

Pac-Man, Pac-Mania, Pac-Attack, Pac-Land, Championship Edition, and Battle Royale work as intended, as far as I can tell. Pac-Mania looks really washed out and some of the music sounds like a garbage disposal is going off, but hey, it was always like that. And of course, Pac-Land is like, some kind of shoddy MS Paint platformer. It's alright. A smaller version of CE is included in the superior and faster paced CE DX (The Championship 1 stage), which is already on Steam, so if that's what you're after, you should probably check that out first. Battle Royale is best played with friends, having no proper scoring system (each player is assigned a title like "Most Pac-Man Eaten," or "Won Most Rounds"...etc etc.). There is no online component to speak of.

Some of the games seem to have emulation problems. In Pac & Pal, sometimes the ghosts freeze and jitter in place. The same thing happens in Super Pac-Man. I somehow doubt this was intended behavior. In Ms. Pac-Man (which, by the way, costs $5 to download after March) the player's sprite seems to wiggle around when heading up or down.

And I just want to take a minute to talk about Pac-Man Arrangement here. You may be thinking it's THIS game, but in fact it is some other, uglier, sort-of related but also not related at all type 3D game from the PSP Namco Museum, with some tedious bosses and slow freakin' ghosts. I have no idea who could have looked at both of these side by side and said "Yes, this is the better version." Why not include both Pac-Man Arrangements? Why are there two games called the same thing in the first place?

The menus are okay. You can unlock badges from getting achievements in the games, which themselves unlock character models and maybe other stuff, I don't know; I haven't played long enough. Each game has some options, but no option to turn off the really bright borders around the screen. Not a deal-breaker in itself, but odd.

So then comes the matter of price. Is $20 worth it for these games, and then $5 additionally for Ms. Pac? Considering Namco has released many much more fully featured, and properly emulated collections in the past for typically similar prices, I'd have to say: unfortunately, no. Heck, if you can navigate the Japanese PSN store, you can find all the old PS1 Namco Museum collections, and those are still as awesome as ever, complete with actual "virtual museums" to walk around in filled witth all kinds of obscure pamphlets and magazines and such. The version on my phone is better! And as far as I'm concerned, nothing has topped Tengen's Ms. Pac-Man port on the Sega Genesis/Megadrive.

So if you get anything from this review, it's that classic Namco arcade games are awesome, but this is not the best, or even a "good" way to play them as it is right now. Find some other way to play these games, unless this gets a major patch and a price drop. Sad times.

P.S. the cartoon sucks too.

So far this game blows. You cannot change the resolution, the Battle Royale that I have been waiting for looks like a terrible port from the arcade, and the game is boxed into a window on the screen. I should have just saved the money to play it in the arcade. Fix the resolution and graphics, add in online multiplayer and it would be worth the price. I wish I never bought this.

Championship Edition is fun and plays ok, but still no graphics options. I can play that game on my phone, so whats the point of this package.

Stay away.

Terrible collection, just a bunch of emulated roms tossed out there with no extras and no effort. No video options, so the games are stuck playing in tiny windows at their original resolution, making it legitimately difficult to play on a large screen. This even goes for the Battle Royale arcade game; the version on here is exactly the same as the arcade, which means low resolution and local multiplayer only. Also noticed substantial input lag on the older arcade games when using a 360 stick. A pathetic collection, not remotely worth the asking price, and legitimately sad that Namco/Bandai/Whoever cares so little for the treatment of their classics. Absolutely do not buy.

If you want a good classic collection, look at M2's stuff or even the old Namco Museums on PS1.

This is garbage. Another lazy, resolution-locked optionless piece of trash port crapped onto the PC.

Skip this title and play Pac-Man CE DX+ instead, or run the older games in MAME.

Barely made it as a positive review...
I love playing the Pac-Man games, all the way since the Arcade and the ATARI 2600 days. But I have to give the pros and cons on this.

Pros:
- A very nice collection of Pac-Man games to choose from. :)
- Faithful game detail, music and sound to their Arcade originals for most of the games.

Cons:
- Boxed in cabinet gameplay view with no way to change this.
- No fullscreen or stretch to aspect gameplay view.
- Can not change the resolution. I'm running on 1920x1200 so the game is now letter boxed and the games are boxed in a cabinet gameplay view... just great... >.>
- Can not map your own buttons on keyboard or controller.
- Pac-Mania game has faded colors.
- Not worth the price with the way the game is in it's current state. If they fix this then yes, it would definitely be worth the price. Otherwise just wait for a sale.
- Late buyers will have to buy Ms. Pac-Man which should already be included in the game. Why are they going to charge for this DLC for late buyers especially when the base game needs so much work done and costs a high price of $19.99 USD? This DLC should just be free, period.